SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 15 of 98

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which set of diseases are caused by bacteria?

(a)Dengue, Malaria, Cholera
(b)Influenza, Dengue, Cholera
(c)Typhoid, Cholera, Tuberculosis
(d)Malaria, Common cold, Influenza

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Every disease named in option (c) has a bacterial agent.

Typhoid — Salmonella Typhi.
Cholera — Vibrio cholerae.
Tuberculosis — Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The question asks for a set, so all three members must be bacterial. Every other set mixes in a virus or a protozoan, and option (c) is the set that holds three bacteria.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Dengue, Malaria, Cholera — Cholera is bacterial, but the set is mixed. Dengue is caused by a virus carried by Aedes mosquitoes and malaria by the protozoan Plasmodium, so this cannot be an all-bacterial set.
(b)
Influenza, Dengue, Cholera — Influenza and dengue are both viral. Only the cholera entry is bacterial, and one correct member is not enough when the question asks for a whole set.
(d)
Malaria, Common cold, Influenza — Nothing here is bacterial. Malaria is protozoan, while the common cold and influenza are viral infections of the respiratory tract.

Concept

Classify by the causal agent, not by the symptom or the route of spread.

Bacteria are prokaryotic cells. Viruses are non-cellular particles that can only reproduce inside a host cell. Protozoa are single-celled eukaryotes.

The split SSC draws on:
Bacterial — typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, tetanus, diphtheria, plague, leprosy.
Viral — dengue, influenza, common cold, measles, polio, rabies, chikungunya, AIDS.
Protozoan — malaria, amoebiasis, kala-azar, sleeping sickness.

Malaria is the built-in trap in this format. It travels by mosquito, exactly as dengue does, so a candidate who sorts by vector puts the two together.

The mosquito only carries the agent. The agent itself is a protozoan, which makes malaria neither viral nor bacterial.

Key facts

Typhoid is caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi and spreads through contaminated food and water.
Cholera is caused by Vibrio cholerae, a comma-shaped bacterium, and kills chiefly through dehydration.
Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and most often attacks the lungs.
Malaria is caused by Plasmodium, a protozoan, and is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito.

Study next

Vector-borne diseases and the vector behind each, including Aedes, Anopheles and the sandflyBacterial shapes and their names: cocci, bacilli, spirilla and vibriosDeficiency diseases, which SSC sets in the same disease-cause frame

Common traps

Calling malaria bacterial because it is mosquito-borne, when the agent is a protozoan.
Accepting a set because one or two members fit, instead of checking all three.

SSC works the disease-and-agent link from several directions. It gives a description and wants the disease, as at 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.18 on diphtheria.

It asks the alternative name of a disease with the organism supplied, as at 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.23 on tetanus and lockjaw, and it asks bacterial morphology outright, as at 18 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.16 on Spirillum.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.